SandForce SF-2000 Series SSD Controllers Detailed

SF-2000 Series of SSD Processors Continued

The slide above shows the changes in bold text. SandForce informed us
that the SF-2000 series of controllers will enter mass production
between Q1 and Q2 2011 and that pricing will be in-line with the
existing SF-1000 product line for the most part. SandForce will be
launching new sku’s that they haven’t had before, so there will be some
difference in the controller pricing. The company says they expect the
SF-1500 will continue on in the Enterprise market, but expects the
SF-1200 controllers to slow down as the market will move to the SF-2500
controller. They also mentioned that consumer drivers based on the
SF-2000 controller will come to market slightly ahead of the enterprise
drives since the require less testing and certifications. This means
that we could be seeing some fast new SandForce SF-2500 controllers used
on consumer SSDs as early as Q1 2011! Just how fast?

SandForce showed us this slide that compares performance of a pair of
200GB drives running different controllers and they were showing nearly
twice the performance across the board. Notice the SF-2000 series
numbers are just estimates and not real test results. We can only hope
that SandForce can hit these numbers in the real world.

Most know that data is encrypted before it goes to the MLC NAND
Flash, but here is a closer look at how the new SF-2000 series
controller goes about it. A new AES-256 engine has been added in front
of the old AES-128 engine to encrypt data, so the data is now double
encrypted. The SF-2000 controller does have FIPS-197 certification of
the AES engines.

SandForce just recently signed deals with LSI and Seagate as OEMs
& Manufacturers that use their controllers, which is a pretty
significant design win for the company. SandForce expects companies like
Corsair, OCZ, Mushkin, Patriot, G.Skill, ADATA and Super Talent to
bring SF-2000 series drives to market once they ramp up production and
get the firmware finalized this spring.

SandForce also made mention that they are still the only controller
company with a write amplification of less than one. They say it took
three years of dedication to solve the write amplification equation and
are shocked that the other companies haven’t figured it out yet. They
say that features like this is what make their drives perform better
than the rest.

As you can see SandForce has some pretty big plans with the SF-2000
series controller and we can’t wait to see them in some SSDs first hand!